Blockchain technology has payments promise for travel companies

Blockchain, the computer network underpinning Bitcoin, is touted as a way to save airlines, hotel groups, agencies, and other travel companies billions by streamlining bank payments and settlements and offering “a single, secure, transparent global ledger,” according to a few reports today.

The technology is described today by the Financial Times as a way of “updating payment ledgers in multiple locations without a single, centralised authority.”

Mention the word Bitcoin, and people assume you mean the virtual currency. But Blockchain is about something else — the underlying technology behind it.

Blockchain could significantly enhance accounting for travel companies, which have complicated ledgers to track and payments to settle in multiple countries and currencies. In the words of a Frost & Sullivan report released today and sponsored by travel giant Amadeus IT Group:

“It is essentially a single, extremely secure, transparent global ledger.The network, rather than a third party, validates a transaction.This means that friction (and cost) can be reduced across the network.”

“In essence, the blockchain is a giant ledger that keeps track of who owns how much bitcoin. The coins themselves are not physical objects, nor even digital files, but entries in the blockchain ledger: owning bitcoin is merely having a claim on a piece of information sitting on the blockchain.”